IU - UCONN Postgame

Random thoughts while watching it snow.

Jay Bilas on ESPN Gamecenter this morning gave 3 keys for beating UCONN.

1) Spread them out and beat them with Dribble Penetration
2) Be physical inside
3) Make them run their offensive sets.

Does IU do any of these? We'll see.

With the snow outside, the White Out would have looked nice today. Too bad only half the students participated. Nice Banana's though. Hey Mom, watch TV... I'll be the Banana in the crowd. But which of the 5 bananas were you?

OLE #1 Right past Marco for 2

Did Davis and Calhoun call each other? Black suit, white shirt, silver tie. They looked like twins... like Arnold and Devito.

And the B10 officiating crew provided a nice homer call on the blatent Marco charge 3 minutes in which led to Brick #1 and Brick #2. And then the no call on the elbow from Marco to Boone's face. Whew... thanks Welmer for keeping Marco and IU in the game early.

OLE #2 Right over Marco for 2

Nice of IU to give George Bush a seat in the Student section.

Glad to see Monroe hit the wide open 3 from the corner. That will open things up inside.

OLE! #3 Whiff as Boone went around Marco for the BIG DUNK! Thanks for the call Mike... glad I wasn't the only one yelling OLE!)

Marco sure is slow to recognize the Double Team. If he could pick it up as it happens, he would have 20 assists a game instead of 5 assists and 10 turnovers.

I loved seeing Ratliff jump stop and sky for the 5 foot kiss on the fast break instead of simply charging through the UCONN Defender.

It's suddenly raining 3s and IU is up 9 29-20! (4-9 from 3)

Ole! #4 Dunk (out of a TV Timeout... ouch!)

Gumby was in the crowd... but where was Pokey?

Glad to see Marco continues to complain to the officials. And interesting that once he starts complaining, the officials start calling fouls on him. Dude... JUST SHUT UP and play the game.

Mellancamp gets face time... but they cut Elaine in half... Stupid camera man.

Note to Davis... when your whole offensive scheme goes through Marco, what do you do when he isn't in there? Obviously nothing... as UCONN went on a HUGE run without Marco in as IU just chucked up bad shot after bad shot.

Whew... IU got lucky at the end of the half as Vaden took his shot way too early giving UCONN enough time to get off a shot they nailed at the buzzer. But it was .1 too late.

UCONN 41 - IU 36

Adjustment time. I'm guessing IU won't adjust, they will just bring Killer back and go through him. Look for UCONN to adjust by going inside more to try to get Marco out of the game in foul trouble. I also expect to see UCONN extend their defense to put more pressure on IU's guards so IU can't get it into Marco as easily.

Ole #5 bucket and a foul.

UCONN came out in the second half and turned it up a notch.

49 - 38 - 18:51 left and in comes the Pepper Pot... Thanks Lavin... I hate you for that.

Ole #6 for a Dunk!

Ole #7 as Boone beat Killer down the court for a dunk.

Ole #8 as Boone beat Killer down the court for a lay in. Killer is Gassed 4 minutes into the half and comes out.

63 - 43 13:35 left.

I'd love to know what Mike said to the team at the half. UCONN started the 2nd half with 13 possessions and 10 field goals. Obviously they didn't talk about defense.

Marco airballed two 5 footers. Ouch

Ole #9 as Boone goes by Marco for the dunk and foul right out of a time out. Thanks CBS for showing us 4 replays of it.

I want a Coke... I wonder why?

Calloway comes in for the first time in a game and a half and gets a nice assist first time he touches the ball. The next time he touched it he drove right to the basket for a bucket and a foul. Then a steal and another assit to Vaden for a 3. Where has Earl been? With UCONN's speed, why wasn't he playing earlier? Earl alone got IU to within 11 at 69-58. Then made a steal and an assist and IU had it to 69-61.

I must say I am very surprised at the lack of pressure UCONN's guards put on the ball on the defensive end. Earl just ate them up. Hmmm... what was it that Bilas said? Dribble Penetration... Calloway provided that.

IU went 2-3 zone down 8 with 5:30 left and, and it led to:

OLE! #10 as Marco was caught sleeping in the middle of the zone.

OLE! #11 as Davis switched Marco to Williams and Williams went right around Marco for a layup.

OLE! #12 as Boone went right around Marco for a Dunk and a Calloway foul. Game over!

UCONN 88 - IU 80

Note: The Ole Count is simply Marco's Ole's. If I would have added Allen, the count would have gone up substantially.

Davis Postgame: Close but not guaranteed to be 100% accurate.

Well that's a great basketball team. But first I want to Thank god for this opportunity. That is just a great, great basketball team. Defensively we got off to a great start and got up 9 until Marco was called for his 2nd foul. But that is just a great basketball team I mean Calhoun has a great basketball team. We scored 80 pts and only had 7 turnovers. That was all about them, they just a great team. They got rebounds. They made shots. Its a game that should help us if we stay focused and keep playing basketball. We cut it to 7 then missed 3 layups and a wide open 3. But I'm proud of my team. Despite of what everyone says about us. It's just a shame we can't support this basketball team and see where we end up. Calloway made a statement today. We needed to push it up the court but once we got up 9 we started walking it up. The mistake we made was not pushing it up the court. We only had 7 turnovers and scored 80 points and that tells you a lot about that basketball team. We in 2nd place. People may not understand we in 2nd place. If we can take out of this game hey we can be okay.

I'm going to have to talk to my family who was at the game. It sure looked like the crowd was supporting the team right down to the end. And 2nd place??? Really now?? Counting on some losses tonight in the B10?

My game ball goes to Calloway. He was robbed by Packer giving it to Wilmont and Leary giving it to Strickland. If he doesn't start against Wisconsin, Davis should be shot!

Thanks Don for scolding the fans for not supporting the team and setting the DJ excuse for the struggles in the B10.

On to Wisconsin for a game that really matters..

On a side note, is there a team more snake bit than ND? Up 3 and Dean hits an off balance 25 footer at the buzzer to force overtime. Then ND loses by 3... 89-86. That makes 9 of 10 losses by less than 6 pts and 5 straight by a total of 11 points. OUCH!!!!!